ALASKA – Despite the continuing pandemic, the Alaska Region exceled in its support of its partnership with the Alaska Youth Stewardship program on the Tongass National Forest.

This past summer, the program employed youth in the rural Tlingit communities of Angoon, Hoonah, Kake and Prince of Wales Island; setting youth towards a path of higher education and employment in natural resource stewardship.

Angoon had five youth work with Forest Service employees and various partners to maintain trails and remove over 250 pounds of trash from the shoreline. The crew also helped cultivate two local gardens and were able to distribute fresh produce to the community.

The element that makes the program unique from other youth conservation and development programs is the emphasis on Native cultural values and customs. In Kake, each week the four-person crew devoted at least three hours to working on cultural art projects at the Bear Crossing Center.

Crewmembers worked on projects they were passionate about including carving planks, basket weaving, sewing hides and traditional beading. This gave them an opportunity to practice traditional Native art forms and connect with their heritage.

Prince of Wales Island had a four-member crew based out of Klawock. One project the crew accomplished was finding trees on Forest Service land that were the size and quality necessary for cultural uses. The crew spent time during their search discussing the importance of Red Cedar regeneration and the longevity of traditional carving practices.

Hoonah’s Alaska Youth Stewards employed four youth over a ten-week program that assisted in many projects including data collection to monitor changes to natural resources. Alongside Forest Service employees, they collected eDNA samples from a muskeg pond to identify if any frog species were present. Participants also assisted in surveying road culverts to measure their effectiveness in allowing salmon to pass through.

The Alaska Youth Stewards program is an example of organizations partnering to cultivate the next generation stewards by engaging Alaska Native and rural youth in connecting to the natural elements around them and providing benefits to the community and environments they reside in. Visit the Sustainable Southeast partnership website to see an interactive map of the work they completed this year.